How family half-matched (haplo) stem cell donors feel after donation
Official title: Donor health-related quality-of-life and physician decision-making in the context of haploidentical hematopoietic stem cell transplantation (HaploQOL)
Funded at University of Pittsburgh at Pittsburgh · NIH-11241956 · Data updated 2026-11-12
This project looks at the experiences and well-being of parents and other half-matched donors and how doctors decide to use these donors for people needing blood stem cell transplants.
Quick facts
| Grant type | R01 grant |
|---|---|
| Study type | NIH-funded research |
| Funding institution | University of Pittsburgh at Pittsburgh NIH-funded |
| Lab location | 1 site (Pittsburgh, United States) |
| Project start | January 15, 2024 |
| Project end | December 31, 2027 |
| Funding year | 2026 |
| Award (this year) | $601,117 |
| NIH project number | 5R01HL171117-03 |
| Project ID | NIH-11241956 on NIH RePORTER |
Who could benefit from this research
✓Could help
Ideal participants are people who have served as or are considering serving as a haploidentical (half-matched) donor—often parents, children, or other family members—and clinicians involved in transplant decisions.
✕Less likely to help
People who receive unrelated fully matched donor transplants or who are not involved in family (haplo) donation decisions are unlikely to see direct benefits from this specific project.
What this research studies
You may be asked about your health, emotions, and day-to-day life after donating cells to a family member, and doctors will be asked how they make transplant choices when a half-matched donor is available. The team will collect information from donors and clinicians using surveys, interviews, and review of medical records to understand physical and emotional recovery and decision factors. The research will compare parent-child donors to other donor relationships to see whether experiences differ when the recipient is a child or when outcomes are poor. Findings aim to highlight areas where donors need more support and how doctor decisions affect donor and patient outcomes.
Why it matters
Potential benefit: If successful, this work could lead to better support, counseling, and decision practices that protect donor well-being and improve care for transplant families.
How similar studies have gone: There is prior research on donor quality of life for sibling and unrelated donors, but donor experiences and physician decision-making in haplo transplants are less studied, so this work is relatively novel.
Where this research is happening
-
University of Pittsburgh at Pittsburgh
Pittsburgh, United States Active
Researchers
- Principal investigator: Switzer, Galen E. — University of Pittsburgh at Pittsburgh
- Study coordinator: Switzer, Galen E.
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About this research
- This is an active NIH-funded research project — typically early-stage science, not a clinical trial accepting patient enrollment.
- Some NIH-funded labs run parallel clinical studies or seek volunteers for related work. To check, contact the principal investigator or institution listed above.
- For full project details, budget, and progress reports, visit the official NIH RePORTER page.